EAT,
SLEEP, WORK, REPEAT!!!
Mario
D’Couto
I recently watched M. Night Shyamalan’s 2021 movie “Old”
and if you have watched any of his movies, such as “The Sixth Sense”, “The
Village” and others, in as much as they are all thrillers, it’s like he is
telling a story that is open to interpretation and allows the viewer to draw
his or her own conclusion for himself or herself. While the movie ‘Old’
certainly had me at the edge of my seat, wondering what’s going to happen next,
one character that struck me from the movie was a person named Chystal (played
by Abbey Lee). Without disclosing too many details of the movie, if I could put
it in a nutshell, it is about a group of people stranded on a beach which has
the property of ageing people fast. Now if you have seen the movie, Chrystal is
like this supermodel who is roaming around the beach in a bikini, taking
selfies of herself only to later realize (as the movie progresses) that she is
aging and she is no longer the same woman she once was as she used to be. If
you were to ask me what is my take on the movie, I find it like an allegory of
our own lives.
We all will grow old and die one day. None of us know the
day, the hour or the way in which we will die but what is given to us is
today,
the present and so it would be interesting to picture ourselves during the
final hours of our lives on earth, wondering how the years have gone by and do
we feel satisfied or do we have any regrets? In fact this was something that
happened with the maestro, Leonardo Da Vinci. Towards the end of April 1519,
after months of illness, he felt certain that his death was only a few days
away. On his deathbed, Da Vinci reflected on all the years gone by. He had
always had a strong sense of fate and for years, he had been haunted by one
question: “
Is there some kind of force from within that makes all living
things grow and transform themselves?”
All of us are born unique. This uniqueness is marked
genetically in our DNA. We are a one – time phenomenon in the universe. Our
exact genetic makeup has never occurred before nor will it ever be repeated.
The problem though is that what we lack most in the modern world is a sense of
a larger purpose to our lives. Too often, because of the corporate rat-race and
trying to make ends meet, one can get stuck in what I call the
“Eat, sleep,
work, repeat” cycle with the few occasional outings, picnics and vacations.
Perhaps you may be comfortable and content with such a life but it only raises
a question if that is all there is to life or is there something more? Is our
lives only about working at a job, putting food on the table and paying bills?
Unlike animals who live by instinct, we as humans, do not simply react to
events out of biological scripting. However, without a sense of direction
provided to us, we tend to flounder, where we may not know how to fill up and
structure our time or we may just not see any defining purpose to our lives.
What is worse is that in all this, we may not even be aware of this emptiness
yet it is something that can infect us in more ways than one.
You may probably feel like,
“What more can I do? I don’t have anything much to contribute or
to make a difference.” You know, the Mona Lisa, which was painted by the
maestro, Leonardo Da Vinci, is one of the most famous portraits in the world.
There have been songs written about her. She is highly recognized even by those
not in the art world and her image has been copied and parodied more than any
other work of art. She has been viewed by over 6 million people every year and
is considered so priceless that she cannot be insured. She was painted between
1503 and 1506 and today hangs in one of the world’s most prestigious art galleries,
the Louvre, in France, where she has been since 1804. Yet, despite her fame,
despite her importance to the art world, despite her immeasurable value, she
has no clue of her worth.
This may sound bizarre as you may probably be thinking, “Of
course she doesn’t. It is just a painting. It has no awareness given that it is
an inanimate object.” While no doubt that it is true, we may just say that
you and the Mona Lisa have something in common, because you are also unaware of
your true worth. You may be going through life, day in and day out, without
understanding or realizing your true value. Your daily narrative would probably
be something along the lines of work your job, come home, watch T.V and maybe
play sports or do your hobby (if you have one) but that’s about it. It would
seem more reasonable to watch sports or reality T.V. than to pursue something
that requires imagination which is exactly where the difference between the
creative and the non-creative lies. For the non-creative, it is easier to turn
off and to shut down. Such a person would rather let the mind go numb and soak
up three or four hours of rabble on television than to pursue something that
can cause pain and anguish in as much as it can also cause joy too. The fact of
the matter is that unlike the Mona Lisa, you were created by an Artist of
greater renown, greater influence and greater talent than Leonardo da Vinci,
yet you see yourself as worthless, unimportant and having no impact. You were
specifically created by the Great Creator, the designer of the universe, made
unlike any person in all of history or in all of time to come and you say you have
no value? Don’t you realize that your value was so great, so immense, so
special that God became man, died and rose again just so you and He could talk
one on one? You are so valuable that He personally sought you out, designed you
and placed a purpose inside of you as we find written in the book of Jeremiah, “For
I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and
plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final
outcome” (Jeremiah 29:11). God knew us even before we were conceived in our
mother’s womb (Jeremiah 1:5).
What He placed in you is so valuable, so unique, that
you’re the only one who can do it the way you do. Others could try to imitate
but they will always be a copy. Like the Mona Lisa, you are one of a kind, a
work of such value that your worth is beyond measure. Yet, you will sit alone
in self – denial, self-condemnation, self-ridicule, telling yourself that you
can’t, you’re not capable, not good enough, not special and not important. When
you indulge in such thoughts, you are only personalizing a set of lies and when
that happens, it sinks down into your subconscious where like a thief, it then
steals aways all your talents and gifts not only from the world around you but
the God who created you.
Imagine if we took a trip to the Louvre in
Paris. We purchase tickets to the Louvre, tour the galleries, view the
paintings and sculptures and just when it is time to view the most famous and
recognized work of art, the Mona Lisa, we were denied access. How disappointing
it would seem to come so far and not see a work of art of such renown and
value! If it is true of a painting, how much more true is it of you? How much
more does the world need to see your gifts and your talents on display? Talents
are given for a purpose, not to bury them or put them aside but that through
it, people’s lives would be changed.
You
may bring joy to others in what they see, hear or read what you have created.
You may encourage someone not to quit when life seems to stack the deck against
them. Your talent may bring hope to the hopeless, healing to the sick and
resources to the impoverished. To you, you’re only doing what comes naturally
as it just seems the right thing to do. To others, it may be light in the
darkness while for some, it may be the only light they would ever see. So never
take lightly of what is in you. Never allow the circumstances of life to
dictate your talent, your ability to create or your faith. Faith isn’t for when
things are pretty and going easy. Faith is for when it’s hard, when you can’t
see the light at the end of the tunnel. However, if you step in the tunnel, you
will block the way and hide the light from someone behind you.
Your
talent can inspire people to do more than they have done before. If you put in
the work, let it grow and develop it to its full potential, there is no limit
to where it can take you and the lives you inspire. In other words, through
your talents you can pay it forward. God has given each of us a unique set of
talents with a specific purpose in mind as we find written in the Gospel of St.
Matthew, “
And to one he gave five talents, to another two and to another one
….” (Matthew 25:15). While the word
‘talent’ as seen in the Gospel
is used in the monetary sense, if we look deeper, it is because of the money
that enables us to do other things whether that is investing in a new business,
learning a particular skill, doing charity and so on and hence with that being
said, we can infer that the word
‘talent’ can be understood as the
ability to do something. It’s time therefore to embrace the talents that God
has given you and give back to others what has been given to you, to encourage,
to inspire, to bring joy and to bring hope.
There
may be people whom you may come across who will not understand why you sit up
all night typing words, drawing pictures, sculpting clay, painting canvases and
so on. To them, it would only seem foolish, childish and unproductive. However
without you, the world becomes dull and grey. Without you, the world suffers
its greatest loss. We, who dream of what can be, are the pioneers of what will
be. So when pain comes today or tomorrow, when depression tries to sink its
deadly fingers, remember your life and your dreams are what pushes the world
around you forward. Without you there is no art, no music, no words, no
imagination.
In
this light, it is also interesting to note what God
did not create
despite Him being the First Creator and Entrepreneur.
For instance, He created animals but He didn’t
give them names. He created land but He didn’t create irrigation systems. He
created stars but He didn’t create a mobile phone app that would allow us to
hold a pocket – sized computer to the sky to see them all by name. Thus we
could say that after working for 6 days, God left the earth largely undeveloped
and uncultivated. He created a canvas and then invited us to join Him in
filling it. The logical implication of this is therefore that we will be
characterized by the creativity of the Creator; God has created us to be
co-creators with Him, to do
“the things that He has done in creation –
bringing order out of chaos”, to create new things for the good of others.
In other words, God is calling us to be entrepreneurial as the American
theologian and philosopher Richard Mouw, once explained,
“God is an
entrepreneur. He leveraged His resources at great cost to Himself. He made
space in the universe for us. So, if you see a human need not being met, you
see a talent that can meet that need, if you invest your resources so that the
talent can meet that need and you create new value in the world, new goods to
be shared, better quality of life or human community flourishing, then what you
have done is not just godly but God-like.”
Rarely
do we think of entrepreneurship in a Biblical sense, let alone creativity. But
perhaps, the act of creating a new business is not so different as compared to
composing a song. Both require bringing something out of nothing, establishing
order out of chaos and creating something good for others and a guy like Steve
Jobs understood this connection deeply. Arguably the most visionary and
successful entrepreneur of the 20
th century, Jobs loved music.
Eventually this manifested itself in the launch of the
ipod, but long
before that, Jobs was connecting with his work as a tech entrepreneur. In 1988,
Jobs was set to launch his highly anticipated NeXT computer. Famous for
obsessing over every detail of every product launch, it’s notable that Jobs
chose the Louise M. Davis Symphony Hall in San Francisco as the venue to launch
his newest machine. In Aaron Sorkin’s biopic film on Jobs, he portrays a heated
argument between Jobs and his co-founder, Steve Wozniak. Standing among rows of
music stands in the orchestra pit of Symphony Hall, Wozniak says to Jobs
,
“You can’t write code. You’re not an engineer. You’re a designer. So how ten
times a day, I read Steve Jobs is a genius? What do you do?” to which Jobs
replies,
“I play the orchestra”. To explain his work as an entrepreneur,
Jobs used a musical metaphor.
With
that being said, we can therefore define an entrepreneur as
someone who
takes risk to create something new for the good of others and while
generally speaking, we may associate entrepreneurship with big names such as
Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Gates, Jobs and others, if we go by the definition of
entrepreneurship that we have just seen, its meaning certainly holds a wider
spectrum that includes creators across the widest array of fame, fortune,
geography, job title, company, size and industry which is to say that it
includes entrepreneurial employees, non – profit founders,
mompreneurs/homepreneurs, students looking to make something of the world,
small business owners and a growing number of self – identified creatives such
as photographers, painters, musicians, authors, Etsy shop owners, designers,
architects, chefs and all those who risk financial and societal capital to
create something new for the good of others. If you still find that you do not
identify yourself with any of these and you are just an employee sitting in a
cubicle doing a normal nine to five job, you are still adding value by swapping
your time and service in exchange for a pay check with your employer. Of course
the salary packages can differ depending on the kind of value you bring to the
table in terms of your expertise and experience or the type of problem you are
trying to solve which kind of explains the disparity between what a person
working at a construction site or a daily wage labourer earns with that of a
CEO of a company or a computer programmer or a corporate employee. In terms of
physical risk, the former has more chances while the latter faces practically
zero to none such instances and it would seem a bit unfair at prima facie but
while we can certainly go into a detailed explanation about it as to why such
is the case, I think it would be best to leave it for another
blogpost/reflection. However to put it in a nutshell, if there are 100 people
available for a particular job, there is always plenty to choose from and so if
one candidate does not fit the buck unless if the candidate is able to bring
some sort of unique skill that could act as a selling point, that candidate
would not be selected or even if he is selected, the salary package may not be
of a higher standard. Contrast that with 100 jobs available with only one
candidate who is available for the job application, each company will be
competing with the other in terms of a higher salary package to get that
employee on board in their company.
If
you are with me so far, you have probably sensed that I may have gone off on a
different tangent but it is something worth giving it a thought. Whether the
work we do or the things we create would be remembered or not or how much of an
impact it would have on the people consuming it is not within our control but
what is within our control is our ability to put in our best efforts in terms
of time, work and effort. Even if we don’t have the good fortune of coming up
with the next hit single or the next best-selling book or coming up with next
innovative invention or start-up idea, the love of the creative process for its
own sake is available to all and if it were not for this, it would be difficult
to imagine a richer life otherwise. If creativity with a capital
‘C’ is
largely beyond our control, living a creative personal life is not and so in
terms of ultimate fulfilment, it is the latter that may be the most important
accomplishment, as the engineer and inventor, Jacob Rabinow once said,
“You
invent for the hell of it. I don’t start with the idea, ‘What will make me money?’
This is a rough world; money is important. But if I have to trade between
what’s fun for me and what’s money making, I’ll take what’s fun.”
To
conclude with one final point, it also matters to a great degree of examining
why we do what we do, as we find written in Proverbs 16:2,
“All a person’s
ways seem pure to them but motives are weighed by the Lord.” This is to say
that when we create something out of a motivation to make a name for ourselves
in an unhealthy way, that’s where the problem comes in as the American
theologian John Piper once wrote commenting on Genesis 11 (which is the story
of the Tower of Babel),
“God’s will for human beings is not that we find our
joy in being praised but that we find our joy in knowing and pursuing Him.”
To illustrate this point, let’s take a look at the lives of the musician Johann
Sebastian Bach and the politician, Alexander Hamilton, who later became one of
the founding fathers of the United States of America.
While
today, we recognize Bach as one of the greatest composers who ever lived, his
work wasn’t celebrated until long after his death. But the lack of recognition
didn’t appear to faze him by any means. In fact, after writing each of his compositions,
he would inscribe the Latin phrase at the end of it,
“Soli Dea Gloria”
which means,
“Glory to God alone” which was to serve as a reminder to
him and to history why he created and whose recognition he sought. Contrast
that with the life of Alexander Hamilton. Unlike Bach, who created for the
glory of God alone, Hamilton was driven by a desire to glorify himself. This
motivation to make a name for himself is a major theme of his life. His
idolatry of his work led him to neglect his family, cheat on his wife and
publicize his details of his extramarital affair in a misguided attempt to
protect his legacy as a politician.
Everyone
knows the cliché that nobody lies on their deathbed wishing they had spent more
time at the office. While imminent death certainly clarifies what is and what
is not important in life and helps put things in perspective, this cliché is
based on the myth that work is inherently bad and meaningless but of course,
this certainly isn’t the case [for a more detailed explanation regarding in
this, you can check my other blogpost/reflection
, “The Silent Worker”
where although the main focus of it is about St. Joseph, I explain about why
work in itself is not bad wherein even if humankind had not fallen into sin,
work would still be a part of our lives and so work should not be seen as a
punishment but rather as a means by which God invites us to be co-creators with
Him,
https://insightsfromacommonman.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-silent-worker.html]. By adopting God’s motivations for creating as our
own, can we envision ourselves on our deathbed wishing we had spent more time
using our entrepreneurial skills and creativity to reveal God’s character and
love? If we, like Bach, see our works of creativity as a means of revealing
God’s character and loving others, then we have proper ambition to write, work
and create like we are running out of time, because we are, given the short
span of time that we are here on this earth.
To
take this argument one notch further, in as much as we would like to think we
are solely responsible for the things we create and grab all the credit and
limelight, the fact of the matter is that it is God who owns everything. It is
He who gives us everything we need to produce profits through our ventures; it
is He who gives us the ideas, talents and opportunities to generate financial
abundance. If you ask any entrepreneur who has raised capital, he will tell you
that a business takes on a different dynamic once he has brought on investors
and for good reason since once the money comes in, he is then responsible for
every dime that is spent. No doubt, there have been many instances where some
people have swindled their investor’s money but at a deeper level, think about
how God, the Ultimate Investor would want us to consider and treat the wealth
and the resources He has entrusted us with? After all He owns it all. Ben
Robbins, the co-founder of Threshold 360 would explain this in the following
way
, “In first-century Palestine, fishing represented a way of providing for
your family and your community that was symbiotic with creation. It was
providence manifested. You would show up and you would simply float along in
this reality that you cannot take credit for and abundance would just flow your
way. You would bring the fish back and you would offer them to your community
and they would be thankful to you but ultimately to God, since you couldn’t
take credit for your success. In my work today, God is my collaborator. I can’t
take credit for the profits my ventures produce. So, are the fish mine? Not
really. I am the person who connects the fish from the sea to the village. I am
a steward. Entrepreneurs are the conduits for abundance but it is an abundance
that is not ours at all.” The parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30
exemplifies this point.
Lastly,
while our creating clearly matters for this life, does it really matter for
eternity? In one of the richest passages of Scripture on the topic of eternity,
the St. Paul spends 58 verses in 1 Corinthians 15 expounding upon heaven and
our coming bodily resurrection, for which you may probably expect him to end
the exposition by saying something to the effect,
“Since it’s all going to ‘burn up’ anyway, what you
do in this life doesn’t really matter” but that certainly isn’t
the case. In fact, if we look towards the end, St. Paul encourages us to
continue putting in the effort as we see towards the end, “be steadfast …..
in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord”
(1 Corinthians 15:58). Now while the phrase, ‘the work of the Lord’
almost certainly refers to overtly evangelical work such as sharing the Gospel,
serving the poor, working to contribute to the Church and so on, this is not to
say that it excludes other types of work such as being an entrepreneur or a
creator. The theologian N.T. Wright explains this in his book, “Surprised by
hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church”,
in the following words, “What you do in the present – by painting,
preaching, singing, sewing, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells,
campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your
neighbour as yourself – will last into God’s future. These activities are not
simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more
bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether. They are part of
what we may call building for God’s Kingdom.”
In
as much as the feast of All Souls Day, which we celebrate today, is an
opportunity to pray for our near and dear ones who are no more with us [if in
case you would like to understand a little more in detail about the feast
of
“All Souls day”, do check out
my other blogpost/reflection,
“Praying for the dead and the invocation of
the saints” https://insightsfromacommonman.blogspot.com/2018/11/praying-for-dead-and-invocation-of.html], it is also a reminder that one day we
too will leave this earth and when we stand in front of Our Blessed Lord, will
we say to Him like the third servant from the
‘Parable
of the Talents’, “Lord, I know that you are a hard
man. You reap where you have not sown and gather where you have not scattered.
And so being afraid, I went out and hid your talent in the earth. Behold, you
have what is yours” (Matthew 25:24-25) or will we have to hear what Our
Blessed Lord said like He said to the fig tree, “From now on and forever,
may no one eat fruit from you again!” (Mark 11:14) or would it be, “Cast
this useless servant into the outer darkness where they will be weeping and
gnashing of teeth” as seen in (Matthew 25:30) for every tree that does not
bear good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire (Matthew 7:19).
